Some good reading...

October 29, 2006

Getting tired of hearing that these days? Yeah, me too. But I'm almost back. First weekend with Elijah finally at home and we've been kickin' butt on the house. Got the trim 90% done in the dining room and living room. Looks AWESOME. Spent some time with the boys all together. Fun.

But, I MISS YOU DEAR BLOG!

Tomorrow brings a funeral that I'm playing for, and then a massive laundry day before Family Night. Here's hoping I'll have some time tomorrow to update. :)

October 20, 2006

It's been 90 days today since little Jude was born. Can you believe it?

Can you believe that this baby that had such a rough start and came home to me at not even 6 lbs is wearing 6mth+ clothes and weighs almost 15 lbs? (Should I mention here that Liam BARELY weighed 15 lbs at a year?). Can you believe he sleeps almost 12 hours a night without a single peep? And that he puts himself to sleep and prefers NOT to have a binky in his mouth?

I still can't believe how lucky I am to have him here and so healthy. I love him desperately.

We have had such a good time these last three months with him in our home. I'm still trying to get Milo to realize he doesn't have to put his face two inches from Jude's to talk to him...but besides that we're all wondering what we did without him in our lives.

October 18, 2006

So we're on the road again for what one might call a "mini vacation", or as Milo calls it, a "Bee-Cation". Louisa has spent the last week with us and we've been mighty busy (as you might have guessed by my lack of posts!), and it was time to get her back home to her husband. So we drove to Twin Falls, Jesse drove from Rexburg, and we met up to make the exchange. It was a clean send off with no tears- Louisa and I decided that we don't need to get all sobby and stuff each time we part...that we'll just have a standing pact to quickly throw our stuff in our cars, hug, wave, and get going. I guarantee we'll look MUCH cooler doing this. It was a great week with her...and I'll get to that in tomorrow's post. We spent last night at Grandma Dorothy's house...she is so excited for the arrival of my parents and family who are deep in the throes of moving right now. They should be on their way by Saturday to Idaho...AMAZING!

We're staying tonight at our favorite hotel in Boise, spent the evening swimming in the pool, soaking in the hot tub, eating dinner at Johnny Carino's, and then watching animal planet. FUN. I love Bee Cations with my boys. Elijah will be off work until Monday, so we're hoping to get a bunch more done once we get home tomorrow.

October 12, 2006

So I'm hanging out on the couch watching TV with Louisa. She came on Tuesday, and since I'm such a BAD BAD blogger these days you wouldn't know, now, would you? :)

Well anyway, she's here with me for a few days hanging out with her cutie pie, Miles. He is SOOOO sweet! I'm hoping to turn my lens on that boy tomorrow, because he is needing some pictures from Aunt April. I'm not sure when she's going home because I don't know what is happening with our driving next week. Guess I should figure that out, right? I would...except I pretty much haven't seen my sweet husband since he went back to work on Monday, and it's hard to plan his vacation time without him!

All is well here. You wouldn't BELIEVE the projects we got done last week while E was home. He's such a stud. We refinished a few pieces of furniture, replaced light fixtures, tiled the front entry...took care of tons of little things like returning the library books that were way overdue and opening a checking account for Kate. Elijah built me a worktable (it's SO COOL!) out of our old kitchen table and some old doors, and I stripped and painted it. I completely gutted the office and went through all (ok, MOST!) of my scrapbook supplies and cleaned house on 'em. I have a huge box to pass on to my sisters of stuff, and I got rid of a lot of extra things hanging around in there. Put away my maternity clothes, unpacked Jude's 3-6 month clothes because he's such a chub-a-lub he doesn't fit in 0-3 month clothes anymore despite the fact he's not EVEN three months yet. I don't know what is up with him- the other boys were so tiny compared to him! I love it though. He is completely darling, and I can't believe how good he is.

I spent the last few days editing senior pictures like MAD...today was the deadline for the yearbook. This is going to sound strange but I'm sometimes shocked at the pictures the kids choose to be published. After the shoot I look through and quickly pull out shots that are not in focus, closed eyes, lighting issues. Then I hand them over and the kids pick the one they want. They let me know and I do any extra editing on it that they need (braces off, zits be gone...) and get it printed. I can always zero in on the shot that I think is "IT", but I'm never right when it comes to the teens. Families? Yes. Babies? Yes. Seniors? NO. I'll share a few shots tomorrow when I'm on the upstairs computer.

So, tomorrow I'm heading out with Elijah and Louisa to an antique show and to shoot some pictures at a winery. I got some work sort of subcontracting through Elijah's job for some photos that one of their client needs, but I have NOT had the time to go out and take them. I'm hoping to get them done this weekend. Besides that Louisa and I are just going to get a bunch of things done. Elijah is working madly through the weekend and then Monday he has another week off. YAY. If I can only get some plans made!

October 07, 2006

I can't believe how much we got done in such a short time with three little kids! We got up to Seattle mid-morning on Thursday, after a stop in Issaquah at Jamba Juice. Seriously, if I could JUST figure out the recipe for Aloha Pineapple...somebody? Anybody? Anyway, the stroller had a flat tire so we searched out a bike shop and waited to get it fixed. We figured we'd be sunk without it because little legs get tired fast. We got it fixed and then headed to the zoo (did all of it in less than two hours!), checked into our hotel which was right by the space needle, and then walked down to pier 55 for the harbor tour. We barely made it...that was a serious walk! We ate dinner at Red Robin on the harbor, and then went back to the hotel to swim, soak in the hot tub and sleep. AHHH. I love hot tubs.

We got up yesterday morning and ate breakfast, then headed over to the market. The boys LOVED it here...we ate hot cinnamon sugar doughnuts and watched the fish get tossed around by the famous Pike Place Fish guys. I haven't been there before and I could NOT get over how beautiful (and CHEAP!) the fresh flowers were. There were more flowers than I think I've ever seen in my life. AWESOME. My pictures don't even begin to do it justice. I was conned into buying a cookie at a bakery (story later!), and Elijah had a smoothie. We went down a much EASIER way this time to the harbor and hit the aquarium. I was surprised how small it was, but the boys had a good time. About halfway through it Milo started to show signs of a meltdown, so we decided to can the trip to the science center and head home. We stopped at IKEA to let the boys play in the ball pit (and to hit up some good sales in the "AS IS" center), and then headed back home. We stopped at Krispy Kreme, and I made Elijah stop ONE MORE TIME at Jamba Juice to get a smoothie for the road. The boys fell asleep quickly and we made it home before ten last night.

Great trip. No tantrums (except almost by me when we NEARLY missed the cruise), and a lot of good times. It's so fun to be together...ALL together. Our phones stayed off, and we just had a good time seeing the sights and being a family. Jude was AWESOME, and hung out in the sling 99% of the time. He is such a good baby.

Well, I'm completely sapped of energy, and the boys are asleep, so I'm heading there too. More on the trip tomorrow!

Typepad seems to be having some issues and won't let me upload the album, I'll try back in an hour. If that doesn't work, I'll get it up tomorrow after church. :)

October 03, 2006

The last two weeks have been the end of a very long, hard summer without Elijah. I haven't talked much about it because I was trying to be positive and just make it through. He was busy shooting footage for a very large job the company took and it made for a difficult few months. He worked all day editing, and then all night shooting. He drove all over creation, going to every single community activity this summer. He worked like mad right up until we had the baby, and went right back after we finally brought Jude home from the hospital. He worked from six in the morning sometimes until well after midnight, not even stopping for dinner. We rarely saw him, and when we did it was usually tagging along to shoots that he had, which was hard because it wasn't really being with him, more like just standing from afar trying to manage all the kids while he manned his camera. I had a hard time not being angry with him, I knew he had to do it but it was so hard being without him with a new baby and the other kids needing so much. The house was a wreck, the car was a wreck, everything was a mess. It's been really bad, but the last two weeks were absolutely terrible...and I just had to shut everything off and step away from it all until he was done. I ignored the phone, the blog (obviously!), everything.

Yesterday was his first day of VACATION. Two whole weeks of paid, uninterrupted time as a family. I had a few tears Friday night when he came home and we actually got to go to sleep at the same time. We went to a party and he sat with me and talked....no camera in hand. All day Saturday and Sunday we worked cleaning the house and starting projects that we've put off for over a year either because I was pregnant or he was working. You're NOT GONNA BELIEVE the stuff we've done in the last 72 hours! I will show you soon.

Our plans this week are pretty simple. I told him we had to get to know each other again. We honestly haven't talked in so long! It's been so great just doing projects side by side and talking. We are going to continue to work on the house until Friday morning, when we're going to head off to Seattle for the weekend. We're checking into Embassy Suites and hitting Pike place market, IKEA (the boys are SO excited to hit the giant ball pit here!!), the space needle, and a special surprise for the boys...the aquarium and science center. They have been asking to go to the aquarium ever since we left Providence, and I'm so excited to take them there. We'll come home late Saturday, and then relax on Sunday together. We decided to split up his vacation weeks so we could go down to Utah together and then see my family (who are moving to Idaho in two weeks!!), so he's going back to work on Monday, and my sister Louisa and her new baby Miles are flying in to spend some time with me. Friday we'll all be driving down to Idaho to drop her off and then head down to Utah for a few days. We'll come back up in time to meet my parents, and then head home the following Saturday to home.